September 30: Flying Fish, Abdominal Pain, Sanderson Sisters

Santiago is a small fish in a large sea . . . 

The sun will bake it out well now, he thought. It should not cramp on me again unless it gets too cold in the night. I wonder what this night will bring.

An airplane passed over head on its course to Miami and he watched its shadow scaring up the schools of flying fish.

"With so much flying fish there should be dolphin," he said, and leaned back on the line to see if it was possible to gain any on his fish. But he could not and it stayed at the hardness and water-drop shivering that preceded breaking. The boat moved ahead slowly and he watched the airplane until he could no longer see it.

The old man is not in charge of his destiny at the moment.  He's at the whim and pull of the fish and the ocean.  Until the wind shifts or the current changes or the fish rises, Santiago must wait and hope.

It's been a strange day.  My sister ended up in the ER this morning with severe abdominal pain.  My daughter drove her.  I was at a doctor's appointment myself when she called to ask to be picked up.  Like I said--strange.  My natural morose disposition had already come up with a scenario in which my sister was having a massive cardiac event. In my mind, she was on the table in an operating room, a surgeon massaging her heart, trying to coax it back to life.

Instead, the ER doc diagnosed her with GERD.  Too much pizza last night, maybe.  I'm skeptical.  My sister was pale.  Diaphoretic.  Her hands were freezing.  That, to me, seems like a heart problem, not a stomach problem.

Why am I writing all this?  Because I'm in a little boat.  We all are.  And the sea is limitless and deep.  If the last few years have taught me anything, it's this:  nothing is for certain.  I woke up this morning with my day all planned out.  Work.  Doctor's appointment.  Work.  Taco Bell for dinner.  Watching Hocus Pocus 2 with my family.  Because I'm that predictable.  I like predictable.

Well, most of those things actually happened.  I went to work.  And the check-up with my doctor.  Had Taco Bell.  Spent the night with Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy, Sarah Jessica Parker, my wife, and kids.  My sister is okay.  She even worked tonight and stopped by afterward with a pizza.  And I watched Hocus Pocus 2 with her again.

All of those small things happened in my small boat today.  Some of them planned.  Some, unplanned.  Yet, small things can seem huge.  My sister at the hospital this morning for GERD--huge.  Eating quesadillas with my family and watching the resurrection of the Sanderson sisters--huge.  Doctor's appointment where I arrange to receive a CGM (Constant Glucose Monitoring) system--huge.

In the grand scheme, though, none of those things will solve world hunger or fight homophobia or end climate change or put Donald Trump in prison or lead to Armageddon.  They're tiny, like Santiago's hand cramp or the airplane that passes over his boat on its way to Florida.

But, for Saint Marty, they're Titanic-sized.  

Blessing for today:  Winifred and Taco Bell.

September 29: The Champion, Glory Days, Nobel Prize in Literature

Santiago recalls when he was a champion . . . 

As the sun set he remembered, to give himself more confidence, the time in the tavern at Casablanca when he had played the hand game with the great negro from Cienfuegos who was the strongest man on the docks. They had gone one day and one night with their elbows on a chalk line on the table and their forearms straight up and their hands gripped tight. Each one was trying to force the other's hand down onto the table. There was much betting and people went in and out of the room under the kerosene lights and he had looked at the arm and hand of the negro and at the negro's face. They changed the referees every four hours after the first eight so that the referees could sleep. Blood came out from under the fingernails of both his and the negro's hands and they looked each other in the eye and at their hands and forearms and the bettors went in and out of the room and sat on high chairs against the wall and watched. The walls were painted bright blue and were of wood and the lamps threw their shadows against them. The negro's shadow was huge and it moved on the wall as the breeze moved the lamps.

The odds would change back and forth all night and they fed the negro rum and lighted cigarettes for him. Then the negro, after the rum, would try for a tremendous effort and once he had the old man, who was not an old man then but was Santiago El Campeon, nearly three inches off balance. But the old man had raised his hand up to dead even again. He was sure then that he had the negro, who was a fine man and a great athlete, beaten. And at daylight when the bettors were asking that it be called a draw and the referee was shaking his head, he had unleashed his effort and forced the hand of the negro down and down until it rested on the wood. The match had started on a Sunday morning and ended on a Monday morning. Many of the bettors had asked for a draw because they had to go to work on the docks loading sacks of sugar or at the Havana Coal Company. Otherwise everyone would have wanted it to go to a finish. But he had finished it anyway and before anyone had to go to work.

For a long time after that everyone had called him The Champion and there had been a return match in the spring. But not much money was bet and he had won it quite easily since he had broken the confidence of the negro from Cienfuegos in the first match. After that he had a few matches and then no more. He decided that he could beat anyone if he wanted to badly enough and he decided that it was bad for his right hand for fishing. He had tried a few practice matches with his left hand. But his left hand had always been a traitor and would not do what he called on it to do and he did not trust it.

It's really not healthy to dwell on past glory days.  It makes you nostalgic for a time when you threw the winning touchdown or won the eight-grade spelling bee or published a poem in The New Yorker.  (Okay, if I published a poem in The New Yorker, I'd have that puppy framed and wear it on a chain around my neck.  If a person showed me a picture of their grandchild, I'd show them my New Yorker poem, which would probably be a little embarrassing after 20 or so years, I suppose.)

I know people who live in the past.  To a certain extent, I'm guilty of it, myself.  When I'm meeting a person in a professional setting, I may give a list of my accomplishments, including the fact that I served two terms as Upper Peninsula Poet Laureate.  I don't think I rest on my laurels at all, however.  I always try to push myself to be better.  Try harder.

This approach to life has allowed me to do amazing things.  Earn advanced degrees in creative writing.  Teach for 30 years.  Attend a poetry workshop led by Sharon Olds.  Star in musicals.  Direct musicals.  Publish a book of poems.  Be chosen as Poet Laureate of the Upper Peninsula twice.  Bring two beautiful children into the world.  Love my wife deeply for 30 years.  Host poetry readings by two U. S. Poets Laureate--Natasha Trethewey and Joy Harjo.

I have been able to do these things by looking forward, not backward.  By forcing myself to attempt things that scared the hell out of me.  Glory days are wonderful.  They remind you of really good times in your life.  Golden times when life was all birthday parties and Christmas presents.

Here is what I believe:  there's always room in your life for more glory days.  I still have big dreams for myself.  Trips I want to take (England, Italy).  Things I want to accomplish (publish another book of poems, win the Nobel Prize in Literature).  People I want to meet (Barack Obama, Stephen King).  

Dreams are just glory days in waiting.  Next week, the Swedish Academy announces this year's winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature.  In seven days' time, someone will be living in their glory days.  And for a little while, I will be a part of that person's glory days, living them vicariously.

Saint Marty's blessing for today: new poems written in a writing workshop tonight.

September 28: Darkness of the Sea, How You Respond, My Two Classes

Santiago thinks about challenges in life . . . 

This is the second day now that I do not know the result of the juegos, he thought. But I must have confidence and I must be worthy of the great DiMaggio who does all things perfectly even with the pain of the bone spur in his heel. What is a bone spur? he asked himself. Un espuela de hueso. We do not have them. Can it be as painful as the spur of a fighting cock in one's heel? I do not think I could endure that or the loss of the eye and of both eyes and continue to fight as the fighting cocks do. Man is not much beside the great birds and beasts. Still I would rather be that beast down there in the darkness of the sea.

"Unless sharks come," he said aloud. "If sharks come, God pity him and me."

Do you believe the great DiMaggio would stay with a fish as long as I will stay with this one? he thought. I am sure he would and more since he is young and strong. Also his father was a fisherman. But would the bone spur hurt him too much?

"I do not know," he said aloud. "I never had a bone spur."

Everyone faces challenges in their lives, every single day.  It can be as simple as being a little tired in the morning.  Or it can be more complicated--major depression, a car accident, a Trump rally in your town.  It's not really about the size of the challenge, however.  It's about how you respond to that challenge.

I've been recovering from my weekend in Calumet since Monday.  My physical and mental states can be characterized with one adjective:  "exhausted."  That has been my challenge this week.  As I've written in the last few posts, I've been experiencing major sadness for some months.  Adding lack of rest/sleep into that mix, and you have a Prozac cocktail.

Going to teach my two classes today, I was prepared.  I had very detailed lesson plans.  I need to do that because I don't trust my mind to be all that clear as I stand in front of my students when I feel like this.  Once at the podium, I quickly realized my plans were jammed with facts and definitions and lists, but they were also completely dull and uninspired.  I could sense the kids in the room simply tuning out.

So, despite my better judgement, I abandoned my lesson plans.  I winged it, talking about creativity and mental illness in one class, and the final-girl horror movie trope in the other.  I even made my students take a creativity test.  And those classes came alive.  Everyone was talking and laughing, and I walked out of those classrooms feeling like I'd actually taught those kids something.

I faced a challenge, and I responded positively to that challenge.  To put it in Santiago terms, I landed the big fish.  And it felt great.

Saint Marty's blessings for today:  creativity and slasher movies.

September 27: The Big Leagues, Niece's Birthday, Mean Girls

Santiago thinks about something that makes him feel better--baseball . . . 

He felt very tired now and he knew the night would come soon and he tried to think of other things. He thought of the Big Leagues, to him they were the Gran Ligas, and he knew that the Yankees of New York were playing the Tigres of Detroit.

Let me tell you about someone who always makes me feel better about myself.

It's my niece's birthday.  She turns 26 today, and she is smart and beautiful and funny and compassionate.  At family gatherings, we often sit by each other because we share the same sense of humor.  A little dark.  A little sarcastic.  We can whisper and be mean girls together.

This past weekend, when I posted about my struggles over this last month, my niece sent me a text message, just saying that she loves me.  In the middle of a particularly dark moment, her words lifted me up.

I am loved.  I know that.  But it's good to be reminded every once in a while.  My niece always does that for me.  

Today, Saint Marty's blessing is his niece, who is embarking on her twenty-seventh trip around the sun today.